Mary

Mary, long known as Bloody Mary, is an ancient staff first wielded by the Sage who was the Goddess of Magic. The Demon King of Incarceration corrupted it and successive Staffs of Incarceration added their magic to it, until Sienna Merdein recovered and restored the relic's original form and name. (Chapters 137, 499, 515, and 518)

History

Bloody Mary

For generations the staff passed among the Staffs of Incarceration and accumulated the magic of its prior holders. In its corrupted state it was called Bloody Mary and appeared as a powerful cursed relic. Amelia Merwin became its latest holder and used a staff whose embedded Dragonheart placed it in the same broad class of artifact as Akasha. (Chapters 137, 499, and 505)

Eugene and Sienna took Bloody Mary after Amelia's defeat. Study showed that it predated Akasha and Frost and contained an unfamiliar Dragonheart as well as sealed ancient techniques. Among those techniques was a method of combining mana and dark power into Soul Power, which Sienna extracted and learned even before the staff's full origin was understood. (Chapters 499, 505, and 515)

Restoration of the Sage's staff

An echo of the ancient Sage appeared in response to Sienna's desire. The echo was not presented as the Sage's surviving soul, but it recognized the relic as Mary and stripped away the veins, bones, and other corruption accumulated around it. Beneath Bloody Mary's shell lay a living-looking staff of vines, leaves, and a red flower. This cleansing restored Mary's original identity and ended its physical presentation as the corrupted relic. (Chapter 518)

Sienna carried the restored Mary in the war against the Demon Kings. Its buds and petals opened as she channeled Soul Power and other magic, and the staff supported her increasingly large alterations of reality. Heavy use could wither or burn its petals, but it continued to function through the final battles. Sienna's spell Bloom used its vines and falling petals to spread a forest and life into the void of Destruction. (Chapters 578, 583, 585, 588–592, 608, and 611)

Abilities and properties

• The embedded Dragonheart gives Mary exceptional magical capacity. Its age and unusual construction initially prevented even Sienna from immediately identifying all of its nature. (Chapters 499 and 505)
• Bloody Mary inherited magic from its successive holders, preserving techniques across the line of the Staffs of Incarceration. Inheritance did not ensure that a later wielder could understand every stored method. (Chapters 499 and 515)
• The staff preserved an ancient method for blending mana and dark power into Soul Power. Using that power still requires both energies and an adequate supply; the formula does not create unlimited power by itself. (Chapters 515 and 578)
• In restored form, Mary's vines, buds, flower, and petals respond visibly to magical output. Severe strain can dry, burn, or scatter the petals, although later openings show that such damage was not immediately equivalent to the staff's destruction. (Chapters 578, 588–592, and 608)
• Mary magnifies Sienna's high-order spellcasting, including beams of Soul Power, the Demoneye of Fantasy's reality alterations, and Bloom's creation of a living forest. (Chapters 578, 585, and 611)

Ownership and custody